The Honorable Rodney Frelinghuysen, Chairman
Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
Committee on Appropriations
House of Representatives
H-147, United States Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Frelinghuysen:

As you prepare to consider the FY 2004 District of Columbia Appropriations
bill, we want to thank you for your past record as a friend of the citizens
of the District and urge your continued support.

As you know, the D.C. Council passed the Health Care Benefits Expansion Act
in 1992. This local law allows two people in a "familial relationship
characterized by mutual caring" and sharing a residence to be recognized as
domestic partners. This Act allows District employees to purchase health
insurance at their own expense for their domestic partners, and to make
medical decisions for them when necessary. These modest provisions fall
considerably short of the protections afforded domestic partners by a
growing number of other states and municipalities as well as Fortune 500
firms.

Since the decade-long federal ban on using local funds to implement this
Act was finally lifted in FY 2002, many couples have gained protections that
other couples take for granted. As of May 29, 2003, there have been 207
registrations under the Act, 195 of them by same-sex couples. We appreciated
your previous vote to permit the District's Domestic Partnership Registry,
and urge you to oppose any amendments that would reverse the current
position. Such social riders are not mere symbolic gestures, but cause real
harm to actual families.

We urge you to stand up to those who would target the District of
Columbia's modest Domestic Partnership Registry in a bizarre attempt to
blame gay people for problems in heterosexual marriages. Such efforts are
really aimed not at defending marriage, but at denying same-sex couples the
blessings of liberty taken for granted by other Americans. Voting to deny
our existence does not make us disappear, helps no one, and serves no
legitimate public purpose.

Legislation banning the use of locally raised funds for needle exchange in
the District violates local control and harms HIV prevention efforts.
Despite overwhelming scientific evidence showing that needle exchange is an
effective HIV prevention tool, Congress has continued to prohibit the
District's locally raised funds from being spent on needle exchange
programs, letting itself be held hostage to the anti-scientific hysteria of
a relative few.

The evidence demonstrates that needle exchange programs reduce HIV
transmission without encouraging illegal drug use. We strongly urge you to
oppose any legislative language preventing local funds from being used for
needle exchange programs in the District. Again, real lives are affected by
such anti-democratic and counterproductive prohibitions.

The District of Columbia no longer receives a general federal payment.
Rather, the District now receives limited federal funding for specific
activities and funds the vast majority of its budget with local funds. We
are hard-working, taxpaying Americans entitled to set our own policies
barring a compelling federal interest. We do not deserve to be used for
cheap point-scoring to impress faraway constituencies. Please encourage your
colleagues to allow issues properly decided at the state and local level to
be decided by the citizens and elected leaders of the District, just as they
are in the rest of the country.